a history

The
Workplace

If you have read the History of
the Company you will realise that for hundreds of years the business
traded in Exeter's High Street but we have no sketches or paintings of
the premises; it has only been in the last 150 years or so that we have
the benefit of plans, drawings or photographs.

The
premises in High street, although still in existence (2010) as
McDonalds has changed considerably over the years and we can work our
way back to when F.W. Woolworth & Co moved into 190 High Street
with its newly re vamped exterior in 1934. We have photographs of the
premises from around the early 1900s and we also have included one of
the architect's drawings of a proposed new exterior and shopfront from
the middle 1860s from the Firm's archives. In 1933 the premises at 190
High Street was closed and a much reduced Ironmongery Department was
transferred to the Waterbeer Street premises.

The
Waterbeer Street Premises was a most interesting building and here I
have reproduced extracts from my fathers recollections and photographs
of the interior (when being demolished) are included in this Chapter. A
film of the foundry and Waterbeer Street was made by my father in the
late 1930s. See Garton
and King Film.

"The
old Foundry was a remarkable building. It presumably had been
constructed or extensively repaired after the fire in 1826. It
consisted of brick arch cellars into which material
(scrap iron, pig iron, coke etc) could be discharged either from
Waterbeer Street through ground level openings, or in the rear of
Trickhay Street. The ground floor was slightly raised about 2ft above
street level and comprised the foundry sand floor for moulding, the
cupola being centrally placed with its back to the yard on the East
Side. Against the west long wall were six brick based forges for
blacksmiths with chimneys for each extending the whole height of the
building.

The
first floor was carried on cast iron pillars and cast joists with iron
or slate slabs, so making a fireproof floor above the molten metal of
the foundry, this was used as a wareroom for storing items from the
various departments (pipe fittings, electrical goods later on, semi
finished products for and from the smiths, etc.)

The
second floor was a timber one carried on
wood joists with oak main beams about 30" x 18" section and well
seasoned so that you could only drive a nail in perhaps half an inch.
This floor was originally used by the whitesmiths, making tinned iron,
copper, tin vessels, also leadwork, etc. In 1920 - 1930 there was a
plumber and a tinsmith. On the West side was a long thick and ancient
bench on which had originally stood the five or six small braziers in
which the heated their irons for soldering or pots of lead for wiping
joints.

Then above the second
floor was a roof space, into which had been put patterns not in general
use. I think the pattern maker also used part of the second floor,
where we also had lathes and drills, which were used by the smiths and
one turner. The blower for the cupola was originally driven by a gas
engine, which, with shafting and belts and pulleys also drove the
lathes, drills etc.(See the "ODDITIES" Page). By the 1920s electric
motors provided the power.

At
the Waterbeer Street end all floors had opening doors to enable the
hand crane - chain type - to unload items from the street to each
floor, the crane mechanism was in extended roof space also with opening
for verbal instructions from below.

When
the foundry was melting metal, the smoke from the cupola occasionally
descended like a fog in the High Street, or Waterbeer Street or the
Guildhall, but as we had been there almost as long as the Guildhall we
got away with it, especially as there were no detailed environmental
Laws on the subject. The cupola was, of course, hand filled from a
stage with a hand crane, later electric, bringing raw materials up from
the cellars to the loading platform.

The following
may be of incidental historical interest.

One
side of Waterbeer Street was mostly the rear entrances to the High
Street Shops. Opposite our Yard Entrance was, however, a small court of
about six cottages which were lived in until the late 1930s. On the
other side were Warehouses such as Hearns the Curriers and Boot
& Shoe Wholesalers. Horswells the wholesale Grocers, next to us
the Danish Bacon Company, and on the west side of us Rowe Brothers,
Plumbers and Paint Merchants, who used to lay their rolls of sheet lead
out in the road and measure and cut them to the size needed. Foot
traffic got by if necessary. They, like us, had four floors with a
crane, so the traffic was often halted while one of us loaded or
unloaded. Rowe Brothers moved in the early 1920s to the old Victoria
Hall, which had been burned down in the night (1919) after a recital by
Paderewski. On the night of the fire my parents woke me and we could
see the fire from Pennsylvania Crescent." Written by
Henry E. E. Holladay

Just prior to the second World
War the Exeter Council gave notice of compulsory purchase of the
Foundry situated in Waterbeer Street and a search began for a suitable
new location of the Foundry. A site was secured in Tan Lane and there
is some evidence to show the the well established firm of Sleeman
& Sons were awarded the tender for the construction of the new
Foundry and work probably commenced in late 1938. It may be of interest
to note that the task of moving the equipment from Waterbeer Street to
the Tan Lane premises was awarded to the Great Western Railway, and, to
quote from my fathers recollections of that time:-

"The
removal was interesting in that we had
asked several to quote, including the Great Western Railway, who proved
considerably cheaper. They did this by having a petrol motorised 3
wheel colt to which the could attach trailers, and also using horse
drawn flatcarts. The point was that for many items the time involved
was mostly for loading and unloading, so the mechanised unit could
serve three trailers, two loading / unloading and one in transit, and
while the carts took longer for the journey the cost of standing time
was so much less it saved more than the extra time in transit, also the
uphill part was with the cart unloaded."

In addition
to the New Foundry a Showroom was establish in the rebuilt Queen Street
Station, renamed Central Station. After the War the show room relocated
to premises bought in North Streeet, No 19 and it is there that the
successors to Garton & King trade to this day.

On
an Archaeological note, the rear of 19 North Street was excavated by
Exeter Archaeology in 2005 and copy of the Report 06.07, EA Project
5448 published in February 2006 is available for viewing on application
to Exeter Archaeology, Bradninch Place, Gandy Street, Exeter.

A
final point of interest. Between roughly 1935 and 1948 (and maybe into
the 1950s) Garton & King operated a "Branch Office" in Truro,
Cornwall. The address was 2 Calenick Street, the telephone number was
Truro 3040. I have visited the location and tried to find out further
information but with little success. I have no idea how many staff were
involved, I understand a fitter was based there in order to maintain a
'presence' in Cornwall. The property was demolished in the 1960s and,
being in somewhat of a backwater and not the most photogenic district
in Truro I have been unable to track down even a photo of the premises
- anyone who can shed light on this 'Outpost of the Empire' please
contact me.

During this period the
word TRURO appeared on many castings, and the purpose of the Truro
branch was to encourage Cornish business. See The
Gully and Drain Covers.

The
Illustrations

The illustrations below show the premises from the
1860s to the 1980s. Two artists drawings show plans for the improvement
to the ouside of 190 High Street but it seems internal alterations took
preference and neither of these proposals came to full fruition. The
front view of the High Street shop shows the Golden Hammer hanging
above the shop doorway. Up until 1907 the Royal Arms had been on
display. Illegally as it appears as correspondence exists between the
Secretary of the Royal Warrant Holders Association, a Mr S. K. Holman,
and Garton and King relating to this matter. It appears the Royal Arms
must be removed after a certain period of time after the Royal
Personage's death. Abrupt instructions were given to the Landlord of
the premises to remove them "At Once". (at the time this was the late
Mr King's wife who had moved to Bournemouth).

The view of the old cupola
was taken when it was active in 1935. The 3
slightly blurry pictures are still from the cine film my father took
just before the war, The chimney view shows Mount Dinham Church in the
distance and close examination of the 1888 plan shows the corresponding
locations of the forges at ground floor level. The Crane viewed in the
second picture is referred to above in my father's notes; the last
still is of the Back Shop, the Foundry Shop in Waterbeer Street - maybe
the vehicle is the Company Car which will feature in a future article
on Transport and the Company. The new premises in Tan Lane was
finished and was operational by late 1939 - an aerial view of the new
premises can be found in Chapter 7 of the History of the Company. It
can only be surmised that Sleemans were the Contractors who built the
new foundry - if anyone viewing this site has in anyway researched this
long established Exeter Builder they may be able to provide proof
positive of this and I should like to hear from them if this is the
case.

The old cupola.

Front entrance to the foundry
from the 1936 film.

View from the roof, from the 1936 film - St
Michael's Church in the background.

The
front of the foundry in Waterbeer Street from the 1936 film.

Whether the Central
Station premises were moved into just prior to the
Second World War or not I do not know - as a boy I remember the
showroom being there although I was probably more interested in the
Steam Trains on the Southern!

The
next three pictures
are able to be displayed thanks to the
Westcountry Studies Library. They are from a series of 35mm
photographs taken by a Mr R Roberts of the foundry probably about 1963
though his notes are dated 1976. I have no idea who Mr Roberts was,
where he lived and whether his interest in the structure of the
building that its demolition revealed, was amateur or professional, he
might have been a local historian or involved in industrial archaeology
- perhaps someone reading this knows. By 1964 the premises had been
demolished as part of the Guildhall Redevelopment but these (and other)
photographs fortunately tie in nicely with my father's description
above.

Looking
in from waterbeer street to the partially demolished foundry, circa 1963

Looking
north. The infilled arches are on the west wall.

The last two photos refer
to 19 North Street - this is where the new
showroom was located at the end of the lease for the Central Station
site. The gentleman in the photograph is of Mr Alec Holladay, my
Uncle, who, with the able assistance of his son Michael, and others ran
the Showroom up until his retirement.

Alec
Hugo Holladay - circa 1980.

The
shop window in North Street.

Thus
we come to the end of this somewhat lengthy Chapter; to follow
will be smaller articles on the Transport G & K used over time, a
short article on the notepaper and printing and the rubber stamps used
by the Company and information on the staff, timesheets, social
activity and information on the terms of apprenticeship, particularly
in respect of a former Taylor and Bodley employee.